BOULDER, Colorado (AP) – Police officers and former associates of a 21-year-old man accused of killing 10 people in a Colorado supermarket described the suspect as subject to sudden anger – and revealed that he was suspended from high school several years ago. , for a sudden attack on a classmate who left the student bloody.
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, from the Denver suburb of Arvada, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of murder the day after the attack on a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder and is due to make his first appearance in court on Thursday.
He will be informed at the hearing of the charges he faces and of his rights as a defendant. He would not be asked to file an argument until later in the lawsuit.
Alissa bought a Ruger AR-556 pistol – which is technically a pistol, although it looks like an AR-15 rifle with a slightly shorter butt – on March 16, six days before the attack, according to a statement of arrest. Investigators have not established a reason, said Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty.
Authorities did not disclose where the gun was purchased. An AR-15-type weapon was recovered inside the supermarket and is believed to have been used in the shooting, said an informed law enforcement official about the shooting who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
A green tactical vest and a handgun were also recovered inside the supermarket after the suspect removed most of his clothes just before he was taken into custody.
Among the dead it was Boulder policeman Eric Talley, 51, who was the first to arrive after answering a call about gunshots fired and someone carrying a gun, said Police Chief Maris Herold.
The police officer who was informed of the shooting said the suspect’s family told investigators that Alissa had delusions and that they believed he was suffering from some form of mental illness. Relatives described occasions when Alissa told them that there were people following or chasing him, which they said may have contributed to the violence, the official said.
After the shooting, detectives went to Alissa’s house and found her sister-in-law, who told them he was playing with a gun that she thought looked like a “machine gun” about two days earlier, according to an arrest statement.
No one answered the door on Tuesday at the Arvada home that is believed to be owned by the suspect’s father. The two-story home with a three-car garage is in a relatively new upper and middle class neighborhood.
When he was in his final year of high school in 2018, Alissa was found guilty of assaulting a classmate after dropping him on the floor, climbing on him and punching him over the head several times, according to a police statement. .
Alissa “got up in the classroom, walked over to the victim and ‘hit’ him on the head,” said the statement.
Alissa complained that the student made fun of him and called him “racial names” weeks earlier, the testimony said.
A police report from Arvada said the victim was bloody and vomiting after the attack. Alissa was suspended from school and sentenced to probation and community service.
One of his former high school wrestling teammates, Angel Hernandez, said that Alissa was furious after losing a match during training, letting out a torrent of invective and shouting that she would kill everyone. Alissa’s coach expelled him from the team because of the explosion, Hernandez said.
“He was one of those guys with a short temper,” said Hernandez. “When he gets angry, it’s like something takes over and it’s not him. There is no way to stop it at this point. ”
Hernandez said that Alissa also acted strangely at times, turning around suddenly or looking over her shoulder.
“He said, ‘Did you see that? Did you see that? ‘”, Hernandez recalled. “We would not see anything. We always thought he was playing with us. “
Arvada police investigated, but withdrew a separate criminal case involving Alissa in 2018, said detective David Snelling. Alissa was also cited for speeding in February.
After dark on Tuesday, about 100 people mourned an impromptu memorial for the dead at the nearby supermarket – adorning it with wreaths, candles, banners with “#Boulderstrong” and 10 crosses with blue hearts and victims’ names.
Four girls huddled in the cold, one crying as they recalled how they protested the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Others remembered the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School and the 2012 massacre at the Aurora cinema.
Homer Talley, 74, described his son Eric as a dedicated father who “knew the Lord”. He had seven children, aged 7 to 20 years.
The other dead were identified as Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jodi Waters, 65.
Leiker, Olds and Stong worked at the supermarket, said former colleague Jordan Sailas.
Kim Cordova, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, which represents more than 30 store employees, said the workers did their best to keep customers safe.
“They grabbed everyone they could and took them to the back room or other areas of the store to hide them or removed them from the back dock,” said Cordova. “And these poor grocery store workers just went through hell, in general, working through COVID throughout the last year of the pandemic.”
Monday’s attack was the seventh mass murder this year in the United States, after the March 16 shooting that left eight people dead at three massage companies in the Atlanta area, according to a database compiled by the AP , USA Today and Northeastern University.
This follows a lull in mass murders during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, which had the least number of attacks in eight years, according to the database, which tracks mass murders defined as four or more dead, not including the shooter.
In Washington, President Joe Biden asked Congress to tighten the nation’s weapons laws. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has promised to present two bills passed by the House to require more background checks for arms buyers. Biden supports the measures, but they face a tougher road to approval in a divided Senate with a narrow Democratic majority.
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Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo in Washington, Jim Anderson in Denver and members of AP staff from across the United States contributed to this report. Nieberg is a member of the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a national nonprofit service program that puts journalists in local newsrooms to report on covert issues.